QUOTA

‘But he is served the sweet dish, why can’t we?’ I was disturbed while eating at the college mess, since this was not the first time I’d observed. My classmate in front of me was just moving his lips & pointing his index finger towards them. ‘What?’ perhaps I was looking stupid to him, at least his face was saying so. ‘Read my lips, you bum’ he whispered in as low tone as possible. ‘Q U O T A’ now I got him. ‘Ok then, no problem’. Quota guys & girls were served sweet dish or non veg on daily basis whilst for general category it was once fortnightly. I should have realized their tables were separate, covered with the table cloth with a flower vase in between, clean chairs, clean & shining plates, each curry pot neatly covered. A waiter of upper cast, I later came to know, would always stand by their table with folded hands. ‘Ours is the marvelous country you see’ my friend was bellowing smoke while we walk towards our rooms in the full moon night. ‘Hundred & thirty years back the upper cast had oppressed the lower cast & now they are doing same on us’. ‘Legally & with the help & at the behest of government’ I quipped to which we both laughed till we found tears roll out of our eyes.

‘Q for quota’ I distinctly remember having learnt in place of ‘a for apple’. Our age a b c d started with q u o t a. This has helped us immensely to absorb the future shocks. ‘We are fortunate & evolved ones having taken birth as humans. But, there are more fortunate & more evolved ones who have taken birth in quota categorized caste’ my father would recite his pet rhyme at least once in a week while he spotted me in the hearing vicinity. ‘You are demoralizing him’ my mother then would shot back thinking he is doing so. Sometimes my father would just laugh in his big thick moustaches or sometimes he’d tell her holding her arms, ‘dearest, I’m saving him of his future nervous brake downs’. Though just a fire man at fire fighting station he was gold medalist in his pet subject of quantum physics with his doctoral research on existence on anti matter. His biggest mistake was he was born to poor upper cast family which thus made him unqualified for the scholarship to study in foreign university. He had to share his gold medal with a guy who’d scored thirty four percent marks less than him, yet stood first from the quota. He’d to take up job in the fire station; ‘otherwise where else a poor scientists would go?’ he’d ask with candid laughter. Here too, he remained as fire man despite serving thirty two years; his juniors had superceded him, became chiefs & even more. He is still at the same place with his whistle in his mouth banging the bell of the fire fighting van whenever they receive a call of emergency. He however still writes in the foreign scientific papers, visits the scientists’ gatherings gets money there. With that money only he could afford to pay my hefty donation & got me into space technology.

‘Shouldn’t you feel frankly this should stop? Enough of this social justice even after hundred & thirty years of independence?’ I spoke to one of my professors who just got promoted at the fag end of his career to that post, a noble nominee three times. ‘You are expecting too much little man’ he quipped & started to walk towards his laboratory holding his stick for the support. ‘Yet, knowledge has to have a say, we are in space technology sir’ I ran after him & pleaded, I was determined to get the answer from that old epitome of knowledge. ‘We study space kid, but beyond that there is existence of god, study Bhagwatgita. One should take refuge in the god, you will be answered there’ with his trembling neck & legs the icon of national space technology disappeared behind the doors of the laboratory perhaps in pursuit of another mission.

‘There is no point in studying space technology & taking up job as sweeper, proofreader, sales man, valve man in the municipality water supplies or a cook in the private company. We should do something worth us’. I’d taken a centre stage & vomited out in front of our closed door gathering of all poor upper class guys. ‘The future is bleak, no chance in government offices neither in private offices, no chance to leave the country since every field of working & every avenue of opportunities is under quota’ one of us seemed pathetic spoke while sobbing. ‘Can’t we ask the government that,…’ we discussed & discussed till wee hours & jotted down certain points. In the end we all felt hopeful yet no way sure of our endeavors & future too. Our “points to ponder” were to be submitted to the government

1. Grant at least three percent of the seats, opportunities for the upper cast in all the areas.
2. Tax all in uniformity. Remove more tax on upper cast.
3. Let upper cast men work as labour in the farms, buildings & as zebra crossing painters, fruit & vegetable sellers, road sweepers, coolie at railway station etc. while they’d promise not to become the contractors & will remain as labour.
4. Trust the upper cast men that they’d not indulge in knowledge activity & gain power. They’d perennially remain as workers.
5. Grant or lease any one state in any province to upper cast. Relax all the clutches of the government. At the end of ten years, if ten times revenue than the normal not paid, with retrospective effect, to the central exchequer, then hang all of them. If paid the revenue, offer them semi independence.

Though I signed the paper as the chief & posted to the PM, waiting in anticipation of jeep with siren with trembling legs in the pants & drenched in sweat on the stairs of our college in midnight.

By
Vijay Yelmelwar